But long-time border reporter Sandra Dibble says the secession movement is about more than just taxes.

"There's this longstanding feeling on the Northern border — 'Look, we're a different region. We're right next to California ... we have to compete day after day with the United States. We offer hope to a lot of Mexico and we're also an escape valve for people in poorer regions of Mexico who come here to find work and hope for the future,'" she said.

Many feel the higher sales tax in a region so close to the US is a direct threat to that hope.

Dibble thinks the Facebook group's large numbers are "a measure of how people are feeling." She says many in Baja California feel central Mexico just "doesn't get" Baja, and this is yet another example.